Rendering in the Cloud… or Not

By Michael Feldman

June 2, 2008

The democratization of digital content creation may be getting closer. Sun Microsystems and the Blender Institute have completed a proof-of-concept project that resulted in the production of a short animation feature using Sun’s Network.com compute grid. The idea is to demonstrate how animation developers can make use of on-demand computing and Blender software, an open source content creation suite, to create professional looking 3D animation.

The animation feature movie created by the collaboration — “Big Buck Bunny” — runs about ten minutes and according to the guys at Sun, took about 50,000 CPU-hours to render on their x86-based grid. At the standard Network.com cost of $1/CPU-hour, that would have run the developers $50K. But for the purpose of the demo, Sun donated the compute time. Blender is one of Network.com’s hosted applications, but because it’s open source software, it doesn’t incur an additional licensing fee.

The YouTube video of the movie is below. If you have decent network bandwidth, a higher quality version can be downloaded from the movie website.

I spoke with Craig Hubbar, Network.com’s group marketing manager about the animation project. According to him, with the Blender-Network.com offering, Sun is looking to tap into a whole new range of content creation users and markets. He says the setup allows all sorts of creative people to get access to the kind of high powered rendering platform that was previously only available to big animation studios. Smaller studios, film schools, designers, and advertising organizations that currently can’t afford to buy and maintain expensive computing infrastructure may see rendering on-demand as the way to go.

“It’s really the market that we think may end up grabbing on to this and using it in very innovative ways,” said Hubbar.

The on-demand platform can also be used to create feature length films. But at the standard Network.com burn rate, a 100 minute feature film would cost around half a million dollars, although with a tight rendering workflow, you might be able to do it for a quarter of that.

This is the first animation feature produced by the Blender Institute team. The Institute is a division of the Blender Foundation, the group that developed the Blender software. Campbell Barton, the team’s technical director wrote about how the feature was rendered on the Sun grid, noting a few problems along the way:

One of the big advantages of Sun’s service is they use a 64bit operating system. This means Blender can use more than 2 gig of ram, which is really important to render characters with millions of hairs. Other offers for rendering only ran 32bit systems.

On the flipside, Network.com hadn’t ever been used for rendering anything on this scale, so the admins at Sun weren’t familiar with problems related to this task. Peach [the movie’s code-name] is a good way to stress their systems infrastructure.

The real competition for the Sun Grid-Blender platform is not users buying their own render farms — only the big studios like Pixar and DreamWorks can afford to do that. On the other hand, digital content creation (DCC) workstations are getting more powerful with each new processor generation and already offer the computing power of a small cluster today.

With the emergence of GPU computing, DCC workstations can leap ahead of their CPU-bound brethren. Not only can rendering be accelerated considerably on a GPU, but the performance disparity between CPUs and GPUs is growing. According to NVIDIA, “For the past few years, graphics hardware has been doubling in speed every 6-12 months, whereas CPUs have been doubling in speed roughly every 18 months. So renderers based on graphics hardware will not only perform well now, but will rapidly outstrip the performance of CPU-only renderers over time.”

NVIDIA developed Gelato, its GPU-accelerated rendering software to take advantage of the company’s high powered Quadro and GeForce offerings. Just last month, NVIDIA made its Gelato Pro rendering software freely available. Prior to that, the company charged $1,500/node for the application, although a basic version could be had for the taking. With NVIDIA’s next generation GPUs probably only a few months away, it’s not hard to imagine a small cluster of GPU-equipped workstations or nodes with the rendering power of hundreds of x86-based nodes.

Of course, Sun could end up adding GPU-accelerated nodes (and GPU-enabled application software) to its current Network.com x86-only setup, giving it the best of both worlds. And since GPU computing accelerates a range of data-parallel technical applications, Sun might consider the wider possibilities. All they would have to do is determine what to charge for a GPU-hour.

Whatever platform is chosen, sophisticated digital content creation is quickly becoming an option for a lot more people. The large animation studios will continue to push the envelope at the high-end, but for the thousands of designers and film professionals, 3D digital content creation seems destined for the mainstream.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

Nvidia Appoints Andy Grant as EMEA Director of Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI

March 22, 2024

Nvidia recently appointed Andy Grant as Director, Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). With over 25 years of high-performance computing (HPC) experience, Grant brings a Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire